


I Had a Thought, Dear

by ladyofrosefire



Series: Like Real People Do [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bellamy Swears, Communication, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, I mean they tried, mentions of drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 02:38:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4811795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyofrosefire/pseuds/ladyofrosefire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to "I Will Not Ask & Neither Should You", Clarke goes to Bellamy looking to escape her memories, even if it's just for a while. Title from Hozier's "Like Real People Do"</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Had a Thought, Dear

Clarke had meant to leave again, once all of this was over. She would see the camp safely through the conflict, pray she did not have to take any more lives, and then disappear into the trees again. It would hurt, of course. Leaving always did. But it was the practical thing to do, the right one. She had been trying so hard to make decisions solely with her head in the past months. Now that she was home?

Here. Now that she was _here_.

It was so much harder.

Clarke looked around at the central clearing of the camp. It had become a courtyard or sorts, a meeting place for official functions and celebrations alike. The Sky People liked to be out in the open after generations of living in a floating, metal box. She did not know when she had started calling her group that, the Sky People. They called themselves Arkers. ‘Sky People’ was the Trigedakru’s name for them.

Besides, she did not feel like an ‘Arker’. Most of the original hundred, those that remained, did not, either. They had been cast out of that society when they had been locked away, and then very literally when they had gone down in the drop ship. But Clarke did not feel like one of the hundred, either. Not since Mount Weather. Shared experience bound them together. And now? Now she, Octavia, Bellamy, Monty, and Raven each had their own set of experiences, their own unique scars. The rest of them shared something.

It was hard not to feel selfish for wanting someone to share this burden with-- all of it. Lexa and everything that had happened between them from the failure of a relationship to the betrayal. Anya. Octavia. Her mother. The missile.

Mount Weather.

Clarke’s hand trembled until the moonshine in her cup slopped up over the sides and dampened her sleeve and the ground in front of her. The rest of it made it into her mouth, thankfully. It tasted like battery acid and would leave her feeling like she had wrung out her brain, but she was willing to pay that price for a little bit of oblivion. Or at least a general dulling of her newly sharpened memories. She would need more than the single gulp she’d had to accomplish that.

But no, she knew better. Alcohol did not cure a bad mood, no matter how much she wanted it to.

Irritably, she threw the cup into the bin of dishes before scuffing her way out of the circle of firelight. She watched the little clouds of dust her feet raised as she sipped at her drink, her face screwed up more from memory than because of the foul taste. She told herself, too, that she did not know where she was going. She even told herself that she was surprised when she wound up back at his cabin.

He had ‘Blake’ carved into one of the panels of the door so that people could bring their concerns to him. Others had ‘Councilman’ or ‘Captain’ or whatever their title was. Bellamy was on the Council. It should have been ‘Councilman Blake’, but she knew why it was not. He had clearly rejected the title the way he had rejected everything he could of the Ark when they first came to Earth.

That, and she had a feeling he thought he was only keeping the seat warm for her.

Clarke stood outside the door for nearly a full minute before she managed to bring a hand up and knock. It swung open almost immediately.

“You knew I was out here.” She accused.

Bellamy stared at her for a few moments before stepping aside and waving her into his cabin. “Maybe I did.”

She stayed near him as he closed the door, her gaze following the tendons in his neck before falling to the line of his shoulders, tense beneath his worn t-shirt. It was dark in the cabin. Bellamy had the shutters closed and the single lamp was on its lowest setting. With his dark hair and clothes, Bellamy was half invisible.

He startled a little when he turned and found Clarke still within arm’s reach of him. A moment later, his expression was neutral again.

“You want something?” He asked.

Clarke could nearly taste the unspoken ‘ _princess_ ’. She almost wished he had said it, challenged her, _pushed_ her in some small way. He had not done it at all since she had returned.

He was looking at her, expectant, his face barely lit. She wanted to draw him. The light from the lamp shone cold on his hair and softened the angles of his face even as it painted deep shadows around his eyes. The world was chiaroscuro.

“ _Clarke_.”

“No, nothing. Just…”

His hand landed on her arm, large and warm. For a moment, Clarke was perfectly still. Then she pressed in, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him down. Bellamy did not respond, at first. Then his hands wrapped around her waist and he pressed his lips to hers. Clarke’s back struck the wall. Her mouth opened beneath his. And-- _God_ \-- he was a furnace, and his mouth was softer than she had expected. Maybe she could lose herself in this.

 

A moment later, Bellamy pulled back. “You’ve been drinking.”

“A little.” She tried to pull him in and Bellamy stepped back.

“ _No_ , Clarke.”

“I’m not-- it’s not like I’m _drunk_. I barely had a sip”

Bellamy let out a derisive snort. “No, it’s worse than that.” Clarke bristled, but he continued before she could retaliate. “You’re-- you’re coming to me ‘cause you figure I don’t care about who I fuck--”

The venom in his words made her flinch.

“--Or why.” Bellamy turned his back on her, shaking his head. He carded a hand back through his hair, tugging when he reached the nape of his neck. “You’re wrong.”

For a moment, there was only silence. The things he was not saying were palpable, but Clarke could not, for the life of her, tell what they were.

“How?” She asked, quietly.

Bellamy faced her again. Backlit as he was, she could only get the slightest impression of the look on his face, not enough to tell what he thought.

“Bellamy--”

“Clarke.” He sighed. “Clarke, I don’t-- I lost you. And I _get it_. I get why you’re here, I’ve done it, too.” He paused; jaw tensing as if he were trying to bite his words into manageable pieces. “But… I was burning bridges, wrecking relationships.”

“You think we’ll fall apart if we sleep together.”

She saw his mouth pull tight in something that was nearly a sneer. “That’s not it, princess.”

She had missed that stupid nickname. The last time he had said it, they had been under attack. It had been challenge and affection and-- And now it was mocking, not her, but the fact that they had ever hated each other. She looked down, blinking to clear the prickling in her eyes.

“What, then?”

Bellamy stepped away and left her cold. “You don’t get to do this.”

“What are you talking about?”

He glared at her, and she took a half step backwards. “You don’t get to run off into the fucking sunset and then come back and-- and then come to me for _comfort_ as if I’m not dealing with as much _shit_ as you are.”

Clarke opened her mouth to respond, but Bellamy was not finished speaking.

“ _We_ did that. _We_ murdered those people. And we-- you didn’t bear it for everyone. You left, and I-- I get it, Clarke. What we did was hard. But you didn’t stop and think.” He swallowed hard, coughed, and then the air went out of him in a hard rush. “ _I_ needed you, Clarke. You had to run off… and I understand? But-- but it doesn’t change that I wish you hadn’t.”

“Bellamy…”

“Sorry--” He cleared his throat and looked down, blinking rapidly. “Sorry, I didn’t… I mean, I meant it. But I’m trying not to be angry at you.”

“I know. And… I understand. Too.” Clarke’s throat felt tight, and her eyes prickled.

If he had hated her for what she had done, it would have been easier. But this was Bellamy. When he loved, he loved completely, and it pushed everything else to the side. He would not _allow_ himself to hate her, no matter how much right he had after everything that she had done. She had left him when he needed her and the knowledge still ate at her

She took the slowest of steps forward, and this time he let her lean into him. He was warm, chest and arms broad from hard-won muscle. Her head rested on his shoulder and her arms wrapped tightly around his waist. He held her, and she could hear how his breath shuddered on the way in as he fought for his composure.

He had such warm hands, strong ones. She had thought that, perhaps, they could support the camp without her. But she had seen how he struggled, and when he had finally told her the barest piece of what had happened to him in that mountain, she had understood. Leaving the first time had been selfishness. Of course, Bellamy would argue with her if she said that aloud, even if it was only to say that she deserved to be selfish once in awhile. He had always been like that, fighting her on every point, shattering the mold that had shaped her worldview even as she shifted his piece by piece.

The camp needed both of them, together, to support one another and to make each other think just a little bit harder. But it needed both of them in one piece. Clarke was still crumbling under the weight of what she-- what _they_ had needed to do. Maybe that ‘they’ was enough. Maybe she could find some comfort in solidarity with Bellamy and Monty and the nightmares would fade.

She still needed to numb herself, somehow. The memories were particularly vivid tonight. But Bellamy was right-- She could not use him for this. She could not _use him_. And how would she face him the next morning?

Bellamy’s fingers slipped through her hair. “You’re thinking too much. What’s wrong?”

“Trying to figure out how to get some rest with… all this. I can’t stop thinking about… everything, tonight.” She admitted.

He sighed, and she felt it as much as heard it. “I know the feeling. Come on.”

“What?” She looked up.

He stepped back, slowly, and Clarke shivered at the loss of his warmth. “Just… where have you been sleeping?”

She arched an eyebrow at him. “Raven’s got a spare cot over in her workshop. I’ve been sleeping there.”

“Sleeping?” Bellamy asked, voice a little too flat for it to be much of a question.

“...Not so much. Mostly memorizing cracks in the wall.” Clarke admitted.

“Then how about you stay here tonight?” He offered.

A flush raced over her cheeks despite her best efforts to stay composed. “I thought you said no.”

“I did, princess. I meant to sleep.”

He sat down on the edge of his cot. It was narrow, but Clarke had every faith it would hold the both of them, if they were not overly attached to personal space. She thought about that-- what it would mean to sleep with her back against his chest and his arm around her waist. What it would mean to wake up with him. What she would be unable to hide if the nightmares came calling anyway. She would wake him, and then he would know, and he would ask. Whether she answered or not, he would know how deeply her burden had cut into her.

But if she did not go to him? She could not afford more sleepless nights. It would take a toll on her health and that would mean medical supplies taken from a seriously dwindling supply. If she had to operate on someone and she was under-rested, it could cost her patient’s life. Her mind could not take much more of this strain, either.

And he was offering, his dark eyes earnest, an arm held just a little away from his body, offering a place for her to tuck herself in against his side.

For a few long moments, neither of them made a move.

Then Bellamy kicked off his own boots and lay down, stretching out on his side with his back pressed against the wall. “You gonna come over here?”

She could hear tension in his voice beneath the casual demeanor he had always clung to through everything that had happened. It was that little detail that helped Clarke to decide. Slowly, she walked toward him, and then sat down to take her boots off. She left them beside his on the floor.

For a moment, she only looked at him over her shoulder, the smallest of smiles touching her lips. Where would she be without him, she wondered. There was a simple enough answer to that; impaled in a Grounder trap on her second day. But it was more than that. She had told him that she needed him, that _they_ needed him, and it was true even now. Whatever else life threw at her, she doubted she would be able to face it alone. She had run from her problems, and left him to carry them alone.

He needed her, too.

He had not said it that day at the gate, but when she had come to him before, talked to him, held him after he had finally admitted how wrong everything had gone in Mount Weather, she had realized. She had always thought him to be stronger than her, and maybe he was, but that was not who they were. She could survive apart from him, and him from her, but it was surviving. Then he had told her, just a little while ago.

Was it wrong to allow herself some support? Shouldn’t she offer the same to him?

She knew that she wanted to.

He was smiling at her, a lopsided thing, one brow slightly arched. “I can pretty much hear you thinking, Clarke. Go to sleep.” He reached out to her, slowly.

She met him halfway.

           

Something between them, some remaining barrier, some piece of tension snapped. The recoil was enough to drive the breath from her. In the dim light, Clarke could not see if Bellamy felt it as deeply. Regardless, he pulled her closer. Rather than just tucking her back against him, Bellamy turned her gently, coaxed her to twist around as she lay down beside him. Her knees bumped his shins, he rolled onto his back, and she wound up tucked against his side, one of his arms around her, her head on one broad shoulder. He was a veritable furnace, and Clarke snuggled almost shamelessly up against him, one of her arms tucking around his waist. If she had looked up, she would have seen him smiling something that was a smirk’s distant, kinder cousin. His hand smoothed up and down her side and Clarke felt herself drifting toward a sweeter oblivion than Monty’s moonshine could ever have offered her.

Some time later, although it was not that long a time, Bellamy spoke. He must have thought that she was asleep already.

“Please...” He whispered into her hair. “Stay.”

She held him just a little tighter. _I should never have left_ , she thought, and then said aloud, “I will."


End file.
